Something Wicked This Way Comes
by EvanescingSky
Summary: When the zombie apocalypse hits, Russia and America know who they want to ally with. They know each others' strengths and weaknesses, battle strategies and weapon preferences...who better to form an alliance? But can they withstand the onslaught of undead? And if they cannot...what will happen to the world then?


When they came, who could have guessed the alliances that would form? The virus swept across the world and nations were falling fast under its grasp; chaos reigned in very little time. But America and Russia, they knew each other's strengths and weaknesses, they had been the bitterest of enemies and strangely enough, now that this end-all-be-all danger had come, each of them knew the other was who they wanted for an ally: The only one who dared to butt heads directly with them.

America is bold, she can fight, she can win, Russia said to his boss.

Russia will never give in, even when things are totally screwed. He's resourceful, America said to hers.

So Russia and America warily signed away their names on an alliance, swearing their loyalty to each other until the passing of the crisis.

And they came.

Through streets and schools and hospitals, they came.

Through fields and ponds and playgrounds, they came.

Through bogs and deserts and beaches, they came.

Swarming cities, towns and metropolises, gnashing, gnawing, tearing, groaning.

There was no escape. Not for the bodies that lay scattered, half eaten throughout the countryside and the downtown, not for the children still grasping their toys, their eyes closed in a bloody sleep. Not for the grandparents taken down at the base of a ladder, safety nearly in hand. Not for the pets in death as prolific as their humans.

But the remaining, ever-dwindling supply of living humans managed to gather such information: cold slowed the onslaught. The undead struggled with muscle coordination as it was, the icy, blowing snows and frozen temperatures managed to take them almost to a standstill. It was something, at least, a straw to grasp at, a hope to shine in the sky like the North Star. And America raised her head to look at Russia, her face stained with blood, the innocence somehow left over from her 237 years as a nation slaughtered like the droves of her people who lived in flat areas, dry areas, all places easily accessible to the zombies.

What was to be said?

Russia threw open his doors and allowed America to flood the gates with her citizens, urging them into Siberia, into the mountains, the coldest regions of Russia she had once mocked without mercy. And then America herself came. She met Russia in fresh battle gear, a machine gun in her hands and various other weapons strapped to her person. Determination set her jaw and Russia nodded to her, knowing he had chosen his ally well.

They hunkered down in the front lines, at the edge of the frozen wasteland to await the wave of undead headed in their direction from Moscow and the other populous Russian cities. Time ceased to have meaning. The world slowly peeled away, piece by piece leaving only Russia, only America, only the snowy trench in which they crouched, guns frozen to their hands, eyes squinting into the blinding white, searching, searching. Every so often they got a call from one of their generals to whom they would report that there was no movement yet.

America answered for him once. She spoke fluent Russian. Russia had no idea.

Her accent was as prominent as ever though.

They began to come again.

One, then two, then six, then twelve.

Russia and America fired, not bothering to go examine the bodies fallen in the snow. Once, America swore that Prussia had been one of them. After that, Russia refused to look at their faces. America understood, like lightning striking, why. He was terrified to look into the faces of his sisters, to see them come at him, mangled and distorted and thus unclean…it would simply be too much to bear. America took it upon herself to kill all the female undead she could, particularly those in dresses.

She argued in her head that it was a small price to repay Russia for allowing her and her citizens to take shelter in the icy reaches of his country.

The first small waves were broken fairly easily. Russia watched America watching for them. Icy snowflakes stuck to her eyelashes, wove their way into her short golden hair. The focus of her clear blue eyes was like a laser; seeing her like this, he didn't think he'd ever be able to believe in his taunts about her stupidity again. Her whole form was tensed, as though she were ready to leap from their foxhole at the first sign of an enemy and charge them. She had a few small freckles on her nose.

And Russia realized something else: America was beautiful. The first thought, it had no emotion or feeling associated with it. It merely was. The sky is blue, the sun sets at the end of every day, America is beautiful. He wondered, idly, why he had never thought of it before. Perhaps he had.

The fall chill Russia has spoken of descended into a Russian winter, threatening the humans as much as the zombies. It stopped the undead approach for a time. Americans, former residents of San Diego, Phoenix, Orlando, were dropping like flies, unaware of the proper ways to live in the cold. America sometimes stayed up all night, watching.

One time Russia turned to her to say, in something of a joke, that since Christmas would be here it seemed before the zombies were, maybe they too, would call a Christmas truce like the one in the Great War. Sometimes they still called it the Great War. America had laughed, bitterly, and reminded him that she had taken no part in any such truce. However, her expression a moment later seemed to suggest she regretted her words. She didn't speak, though, just let the tense silence fall back over them.

It was a few minutes before Russia heard her voice again. It was soft, almost hesitant, singing a melody much gentler than those Russia was accustomed to hearing from her. It took him a moment to place the strange sense of déjà vu brought on by the tune, before he realized he knew that tune—he simply knew the lyrics in Russian. It was a Christmas song.

"_Oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining…" _

He looked at her a long moment, trying to discern whether she wanted him to ignore her to acknowledge her song. At last, hesitantly, tentatively, he joined his voice with hers, offering her the Russian song to go along with hers. She snapped her gaze over to him, so surprised that she fell silent. He almost stopped, almost, but something changed in her eyes, something he couldn't necessarily place, but she quickly took up the song again and then they returned their attention to the snowy wasteland in front of them. They finished the song together.

When she took her rest later, America marveled she had never known Russia could sing. And quite well, at that.

It seemed that the Russian winter could halt even the undead-the more they submerged into the arctic weather, the fewer zombies showed. Eventually the horizons were clear. The thought that had occurred to Russia early on, the one that told him America was beautiful, began to knock about in his head. More and more he thought of it and the more he thought of it the less he was able to do so with a clear head. America didn't seem to notice. America didn't really seem to notice anything but her own unshakable, unstoppable desire to slaughter each and every one of the monsters that had driven her people from their home, that had massacred them in the streets, that had broken the very laws of nature to do so.

Cleaning, maintaining their guns was hard. America cut her finger once, Russia heard her sharp intake of breath and looked over at her with curious lilac eyes.

"Hands are too fucking cold," she grumbled, shaking the one bitten by her gun. America cursed when she wanted to brush things off. When she wanted to pretend those things didn't matter. To try to make it seem like she didn't care.

On some impulse, Russia moved closer to her, slid off his gloves and took her hand between his own large, calloused ones. His heartbeat echoed like a drum in his ears; he waited for the inevitable—for America to push him away. But she did not. Rather, she turned confused blue eyes up to him and then, at length, she said, "Your hands are fucking cold too man."

And then they laughed.

They pulled their gloves back on and sat a little closer to each other after that.

Russia told her where he'd gotten the scarf. She asked one day, sincerely, not tauntingly like she had in the Fifties. She genuinely wanted to know. So he told her and she smiled. There was a bit of longing in it, a bit of pain in her smile, but Russia felt a bit warmer for having made her smile. She told him she wished she had a token from Canada to keep with her. She hadn't seen him since before the outbreak of the zombie virus. After that, she went to sleep.

When she woke from her rest, the scarf was wrapped around her. She kept it for a few more minutes, and then snuck up behind Russia and tied it back around his neck where it belonged. When he turned to look at her in surprise, she just smiled. It was the first unburdened smile he had seen from her in more than a year and for the first time in so many decades it was directed at him. It was the smile America gave to her friends.

"Go get some sleep, big guy," she had said to him. "I've gotcha covered. I AM the hero, after all." She laughed, a light, airy kind of laugh that ignored the seriousness of the situation. Russia went to lie down. But he paused.

"Ivan," he said.

"Huh?"

"Ivan. You can…call me Ivan."

"Ivan…" There was that smile again, flickering across her lips. "Go the hell to sleep, Ivan."

He slept.

"America-"

"Amelia," she interrupted. "You know my name is Amelia."

"Amelia…"

They began to sing Christmas carols. They didn't know what day it was, or whether or not Christmas had come or gone or not, but they sang because it made them feel better, it made them feel comforted. O Holy Night, It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, even "Winter Wonderland". America taught Russia "Jingle Bell Rock" and tried to get him to dance it with her. He wouldn't, but he showed her how to waltz. Her laugh, her smile was the true music to him.

And somehow, before he even knew it, he loved her. He had not fallen in love with her—he just loved her. It was as though one day he did not and then suddenly he was waist-deep in his love for her. It was a calming, warming kind of feeling that gave him peace even in the midst of their world of chaos and uncertainty. He didn't dwell on it—he just allowed it to be.

But as the winds began to wane, as the snow began to fall more softly, they came back. Not in small waves like before, but in great droves like the first attacks. The air was alive with their groans and shrieks at nearly all hours of the day. Bullets began to run low, tempers ran high and desperation was the air for breathing.

Minute by minute, Russia and America began to understand that they were not going to win this fight. And the both of them were so stubborn, so wildly hard-headed and unwilling to give in it only made them fight all the harder, screaming and shouting at their enemies even knowing the zombies did not understand.

All this time Russia had been awaiting with a terrible dread to see his sisters there, to see Belarus, to see Ukraine and to know they had lost. But it was not Russia's family who showed. It was America's.

When England, Scotland and Wales had become overwhelmed on their small island with the undead, they had fled to France. And it was England whom America saw shamble towards her. Russia saw the familiar blond head too and snapped his head over to America. The expression on her face told him her actions before she did it.

"America!" he bellowed. But she threw herself out of the foxhole, firing at the others, running towards England even though she had no idea what she would do when she reached him.

"Arthur!" she wailed. "England!" She dodged a swipe from another zombie and fired on him. Russia's heart hammered in his chest, his throat was nearly closed up with fear and he forced himself back into motion, hauling himself from the trench to take out the zombies threatening to close in on America. "England!"

"Chert voz'mi Amerika*!" Russia roared. "That isn't England anymore, _get away_!" He took off the nation-tan formerly England's head off with a single bullet. His body crumpled to the ground.

"Big brother!" America shrieked, stumbling as if to fall forward onto her knees. Russia thanked God, though, she came to her senses. She looked around as though realizing the danger for the first time and turned to run. "Get back to the trench, Ivan!" she shouted, firing at undead from all sides. Assured that she was coming, Russia too, turned to go. But they were out far now, and they had allowed the zombies to surround them. America broke into a sprint, sometimes knocking the zombies aside with the body of her gun when necessary. And then she ran out of bullets. She looked back, to see Russia nearly at the trench now. Casting the machine gun aside she took out a pistol and turned to face the zombies. She waved it around, leaping to get the attention of the undead, drawing them to her.

She fired on them as best she could and when Russia reached the trench and turned, he realized what she was doing and he knew it was too late. But he came back anyway. Mowing down the zombies in his path, Russia made a beeline back for the idiot blonde.

"Amerika! Get back to the trench!" he ordered her, desperation fueling his weary muscles. They closed in and he could not see her anymore. She was covered with a swarm of infected undead. He pushed his legs faster, ignoring the screaming protests they gave. He dragged the undead off her, using his own combination of melee warfare and bullets to halt the flow. When at last those surrounding America had been dispatched, he knelt in the red snow and pulled her up into his arms. Her eyes were closed, but when he pressed two fingers to her throat, he felt that she lived.

Those big blue eyes fluttered open halfway and came to rest with dull focus on his face. "Ivan…" she murmured, her voice rough. Claw marks and bites laced her skin; she was shredded. They could only be thankful the cold froze the horrible smell of the undead. "Get back…they will come again…" The words seemed to take all the energy she possessed and her muscles slackened in his grip.

"A…Amelia…why?" Russia cried, shaking her. He knew it was too late to ask her not to die, but he had to know why she had done it.

A pained smile touched her lips. "I don't know," she gurgled, coughing. Blood spattered his sleeve and her breath came in a wheezing gasp. "I…guess I didn't…use my…head…" Still trying to joke, still irreverent.

"You cannot die," he whispered, sense fleeing as he pleaded with her to stay. "You cannot!" It became a demand, an order. America laughed weakly.

"Who's gonna…stop me…sweetheart? You?" She chuckled and blood oozed from the corner of her mouth before she broke off into more ragged coughing. Crimson droplets would have peppered the snow, were it not already drenched in scarlet.

"You cannot," Russia repeated, his voice dropping until it was barely audible. "You cannot die because I love you, Amelia." And what she did next surprised him yet again, perhaps more than all the other things she had ever done.

A smile settled on her lips, infinitely pained, infinitely sympathetic: she understood, the smile said, she felt his pain and she was so sorry for causing it. She wanted to make it go away, but she could not. "I know," she rasped, her hand reached out clumsily to give his a squeeze. Their eyes locked and held and her gaze said so many things, so many things she could never say herself, would never say. Russia's merely begged her to stay, to wait, so that he might find an answer appropriate to the situation.

"You…" Before he could ask his question, he noticed her eyes closing again and he grabbed her upper arms tightly, giving her another shake. "Amelia! Tell me how, tell me how you know! Amelia! Tell me what you think! Amelia!"

But no responses were forthcoming from the American. Russia stared at her for a long time, trying to memorize every curve of her face, every shade of her hair and her eyes, but to his frustration, he could not recall her life to his satisfaction. It was just not the same. So he screamed. He clutched her body to his chest and howled like a wounded animal, hating the world and everything about it for the cruel hand it had dealt him in life, for the cosmic jokes that always knocked him in the back of the head, for the pain that was the only thing he knew.

And when he was done with that, he lowered her a bit, so he could look into her face again. He pressed an icy kiss to her lifeless lips, devoid of the warmth that had once emanated from her. His lips were clumsy and unpracticed on hers, it would have made her laugh if she had been awake to. He wished she was, he wished he could hear her mock him so that he could be offended and refuse to talk to her so she'd make a fool of herself trying to force him to. He kissed her and he cried and when he saw them begin to come again, he laid Amelia down at his feet and rose up, gripping his gun. He wanted them to come. He was ready.

And they came.

And came.

And came.

And Russia fell.

And humanity vanished from the world, plunging the Earth into darkness.

And somewhere in the snowy wasteland of a place once called Russia, once called Siberia, there were two normal corpses amongst the tattered, ratty zombies ones. A small blonde woman and a bulky man with silvery hair. And their corpses froze next to each other. They were both smiling.

*dammit, America!


End file.
